Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present invention relate generally to a method and a device for processing graphics, and more particularly, to a method and a device for processing graphics using a one-shot signal.
Description of the Related Art
In a device such as a mobile phone that is equipped with an operating system such as Android, the display refresh process includes process of frame rendering, which comprises: each application (such as a desktop application or a flow-monitoring application) performs a rendering operation to render a respective graphic layer; after all applications finish the rendering operation, the system performs a combining operation to combine the respective graphic layers rendered by each application into a frame, and then the system transmits the frame to a display screen to be displayed. Therefore, duration of displaying a frame depends on the following factors: the maximum time it takes each application to perform a rendering operation, the time it takes each application to perform the combining operation, and the time it takes to output the fame to the display screen.
In order to improve the smoothness of displaying the frame, a vertical synchronization (VSYNC) refresh mechanism is introduced. In the VSYNC refresh mechanism, a periodic interrupt is generated by transmitting a VSYNC signal so that any rendering operation performed by each application or any combining operation performed by the system, is triggered via the VSYNC signal. Thus, the entire display refresh process can be performed in order.
However, when the performance of the hardware configuration of the device is lower, the time it takes to perform the rendering operation or the time it takes to perform the combining operation, may be longer than the period of the VSYNC signal, and this can result in frame skipping. It reduces the timeliness of refreshing the system display.
As shown above, a new method and a device for processing graphics is desirable.